Insights

Social Landscape Review: Q2 2013

Hard to believe we’re already halfway through 2013, which means that it’s time for the second quarter Stuzo Social Landscape Review. The social space is more complex than ever, as we can see from the latest Conversation Prism from Brian Solis and Jess3. Which social platforms and savvy brands have made it into our quarterly highlights? Read on to find out.

April

Game of Thrones Engagement Soars (4/4): HBO is a social marketing leader in the entertainment space, and this infographic from Social Bakersshows just how engaged viewers and fans are with Game of Thrones, which was renewed for a fourth season. A combination of excellent content, wide distribution across appropriate social channels, and custom social and mobile experiences ensures that fans engage with the brand even during its off seasons. .

Twitter Music (4/18): After a few months in beta, Twitter #Music finally launched in mid-April as a web interface and a standalone app, thus giving musicians and entertainers a new platform on which to market and be heard.

Yahoo! Acquires Tumblr for $1.1B (5/20): In late May, the bidding war for Tumblr came to a head when Yahoo! announced their acquisition for over a billion dollars. There have been a number of questions about the content on Tumblr and how family-friendly Yahoo! plans to either clean up or isolate that content. We’re sure there is more to come in 2013 from this seismic shift.

Dove, Kmart, Evian Excel on YouTube (5/24): Several brands had big wins on YouTube in May. The Real Beauty Sketches by Dove were uplifting and right on point for the brand, and the message rang true for their consumers across social channels. Kmart debuted a hilarious and award winning TV campaign, which bled into social via YouTube, called Ship My Pants, touting a free shipping service. Another ad, Big Gas Savings, hit parallel gold, and the two racked up tens of millions of views on YouTube. Finally, Evian, of historical dancing baby fame, went back to its roots and debuted a cross-channel engagement campaign featuring a new generation of CGI dancing babies. This campaign came with a mobile app that allowed viewers and fans to baby themselves and share their Evian baby face across social platforms. Also big news on YouTube for May, the video sharing social platform turned eight years old and shared out this tribute to all of the users that made it possible.

Google Acquires Waze for $1B+ (6/11): Another hotly contested acquisition race, Waze was acquired by Google to further augment its Maps product. Seen as more of a defensive move – acquisition, rather than watch a competitor like Facebook or Apple make a huge gain in the LBS space – the Waze and Google integration will be closely watched by insiders into 2014.

Facebook Launches Hashtags, Verified Pages, and Home (6/12): Q2 was a very busy few months for the social networking giant, Facebook, and it saw the launch of three significant products and updates. First, in April, Facebook Home was launched as a social layer for the operating system, with Chat Heads taking a starring role. Read more about Facebook Home here on the Stuzo Insights blog. Then, in May, Facebook rolled out Verified Pages and Profiles, which essentially mirror Twitter’s verification badges. No word on exactly how brands can get verification, but look for more as they roll out further in 2013. Finally in June, in what many believe to be their biggest move of the quarter, Facebook rolled out hashtag functionality to capture and organize topical conversation in the manner that many other social platforms already do, but at a much larger scale. Of course, advertising opportunities here abound, but this is definitely an update that has a huge value to the end user for the Facebook platform. For brands, there is now a much easier way to join conversation related either directly or tangentially to your product or service.

Instagram Launches Video (6/23): In a joint effort for Instagram and parent Facebook, Video for Instagram was rolled out at the end of the quarter to directly compete with Vine and parent, Twitter, for micro-video sharing supremacy. Some brands, like Lululemon, jumped right in and users quickly followed suite. For a side-by-side look at Instagram Video and Vine, check out the Stuzo Insights post.